In Mumbai, I had first seen a novelty item: certain stretches of road and pavement were laid with paver blocks, or paving stones as they are also called. And I was rather pleased to see them for no other reason than that they were a novelty.
Tar roads were what I’d seen so far everywhere I went, and what can be duller than a tar road? It was flat – with any luck – and sort of black-blue while it was new, and then it turned grey-brown when it was old. Then it got patchy and pitted and, at some point, it would develop large holes in the surface that everyone would curse at.
We would complain about how our tax money was being abused. Eventually, we’d see the road cordoned off. Thin men would dig and re-surface, while large drums full of the blackest tar would sit by the pavement. For a while, we would stop cursing and watch the progress of the road with detached interest. We might curse on account of having to take a slight detour, but our hearts will not really be in the cursing, as long as we know it’s a temporary detour.
A couple of decades ago, however, someone high up in the municipal corporation of Mumbai must have decided to try something new. Interlaced paver blocks were rumoured to be a better idea than concrete or tarred roads. Some people joked that the politicians who pushed for this change probably had relatives who had set up paver block factories. Who knows?
I have to admit that I was pleased to see paver blocks for totally impractical reasons. They made for interesting shapes and colours. I liked looking at the geometrical patterns unfolding under my feet, and a road or pavement or walkway could be terracotta red or yellow. I kept hoping that the authorities would get more inventive and ask for more colours to be embedded into the design – green, blue, black, teal. Why not? Just imagine, what if entire stretches of road could be made into designer works of art? Paver blocks could be set in different colours to make images or portraits. One could embed messages in the shape of words. At the very least, the street could tell us its own name. If we got really creative, we could leave capsules of history strewn about the city. Suburb by suburb, street by street, we could learn to remember where we were, and how we got here.
I was sadly disappointed of course. Dull red and dirty yellow was all the city would allow. Accessible history lessons were not high on the agenda of our politicians. Besides, it is not a city planned for lingering. It is a city of rush, of forgetting rather than of remembrance.
At any rate, those blocks were a mistake for a city as busy as this, and especially given the long monsoon season. Mumbai learnt that block-paved roads are not more durable than good old tar. As a pedestrian, I can also vouch for the fact that they are not so great for pavements. Broken or twisted blocks can lead to sharp falls and serious damage. At least one woman recently reported having broken both her ankles as a result of stumbling over a dislodged paver block.
Besides, blocks entail a more complicated repair job, because you cannot hire someone to just fill in the gap with mud and smooth over the surface. Replacement blocks of the exact same size have to be found first. Complaints about broken and badly-fitted blocks over the years led to the municipal council deciding to do away with them. Despite this, other Indian cities have been embracing blocks, which are supposed to offer a cheaper alternative to concrete or tar roads.
Interestingly, paver blocks have popped up in the news for other reasons too. Several acts of violence and a few murder cases involved paver blocks. They’re cheap, freely available and, given that so many are found dislodged, they’re the most handy weapon on the road. I’ve begun to think that, given that many Indians are so quick to take offence, tarred roads are probably best for us.
In the meantime, I’m discovering that patterns have a way of leaving imprints everywhere, especially patterns of our behaviour. We cannot seem to wait for a new road to dry before we start using it. For a few weeks after a road is repaired, its gleaming new black surface bears the imprint of footsteps and tyre tracks. Sometimes, I have also found memories preserved in wet concrete. The imprint of a crow’s feet, or a human name and a little heart with an arrow going through it.
The author is a writer of essays, stories, poems and scripts for stage and screen
